“I can’t imagine the Moon just breaking up.”
“It won’t happen immediately.” Lorrest spoke as though explaining some minor mechanical process. “It won’t be a head-on collision, you see. What we’ve got to do is strike the Moon a glancing blow at a precisely calculated angle and start it spinning fast. Very fast. The rotation will set up gravitational stresses in the Moon and tear it to pieces, and the pieces will go on spinning and breaking up into smaller pieces and scattering themselves. According to our calculations, the end result will be a whole swarm of little moonlets strung out along the Moon’s orbit. All the second-order and third-order forces will be pretty well neutralised, especially gravity, which is why we had to force an evacuation of the Aristotle colony. The Lagrange points will have ceased to exist, and for a while there’s going to be enough chaos on Earth without a runaway space colony to worry about.”
“What sort of chaos?”
“Well, for example, there’ll be no more lunar tides. All tidal energy schemes will have to be abandoned, coastlines are going to change, major sea ports are going to silt up.”
Gretana gave an uncertain laugh. “Helping Hand!”
“Exactly. And having demonstrated in an impressive manner that we exist and mean business, we’re going to come out in the open. We’re going to put ships into Earth orbit, make direct contact with heads of state, help to stabilise the world situation until the new generations of Terrans appear—the ones who haven’t had their genetic blueprints distorted.” Lorrest raised his brandy glass as though proposing a toast. “You’re lucky, Gretana—you’re going to witness the birth of a new world.”
“And how many of the people who actually inhabit this world are going to be unlucky?”
Lorrest frowned. “Meaning?”
“The period of chaos…culture shock…reduced energy supplies…food and commodity shipments disrupted…How many Terrans are going to die as a result?”
“You can’t look at it like that,” Lorrest said impatiently. “If we do nothing the whole bloody lot are going to die sooner or later. Sooner, if you ask me.”
“What if I don’t ask you?” She kept her voice level. “What if I don’t regard you as any kind of authority?”
Lorrest slammed his glass down on the table, spilling some of its contents. “Igetit—you’re not going to give me the nodal point.”
“I never said I would.”
“You are learning, aren’t you?” Lorrest stood up, his face hardening as she had seen it do before, losing all trace of its characteristic amiability. “What next? A quick jaunt to Station 23 to report me to Vekrynn?”
“No, I’m prepared to keep this to myself—as long as you never come near me again,” Gretana said, and to give the lie more credence added, “Besides, I have no intention of leading you straight to the node.”
“We reached this stage once before,” Lorrest replied, slipping his right hand into the pocket of his jacket, “but the situation is more urgent this time. I need that location, and you’re going to give it to me—whether you want to or not.”
Gretana rose to face him, keyed-up and apprehensive, but not fully believing the threat of force. She was still formulating a reply when from the direction of the hall there came a violent pinging sound—half-explosive, half-electronic in nature—and a small metallic object slid into view on the parquet floor between the dining area and the kitchen. Heart stopped, mind numbed by the certainty that she was close to a grenade which was on the point of detonating, she threw herself backwards, collided with the table and was turning to run when her identification of the object was completed. It was the main lock from the apartment’s outer door. In the same instant a squat-bodied man with protuberant pale eyes and a down-curving gash of a mouth came running into the room. He was holding a weapon which appeared to be a laser pistol.
“Nobody move,” he ordered in a hoarse voice. “Don’t nobody move.”
Gretana forced her speech organs to manufacture distant sounds. “What do you want?”
“Shut it.” The intruder examined her briefly and dismissively, eyes as unsympathetic as those of a deep-water fish, and turned his attention to Lorrest. “The hands, big man—hoist ’em.”
“Gladly.” Seemingly unperturbed, Lorrest raised his right hand almost to the ceiling and spoke in conversational tones. “Would you mind saying what you want?”
The stubby man gestured with the pistol. “Get the other hand up.”
Lorrest smiled apologetically. “I’d like to oblige, but I’ve got a broken arm. I don’t usually walk around doing this Napoleon imitation.”
“You better hold real still,” the man said. “You so much as fart, I burn your arm off.”
Keeping the pistol trained on Lorrest, he felt in his overcoat pocket with the other hand and produced a small object which resembled a photographic light meter. He pointed it at Lorrest and made scanning movements. Gretana watched him with a sense of alarm which increased with every second. Violent crime was rife throughout the country, but it would have been too much of a coincidence if she and Lorrest had fallen foul of a casual raider at this particular time—and the intruder appeared to be unusually well equipped. The implication was that he was acting for the Bureau of Wardens, as a kind of bounty hunter, but what other inferences could be drawn?
“So you’re carryin’ no hardware, just like they said.” The man put the scanning device away. “You got a coat?” Lorrest nodded towards the kitchen. “In there.”
“I’ll pick it up on the way out. Walk in front of me.” Lorrest took one step towards the kitchen, but halted directly underneath a fluorescent light fitting, his face unnaturally shadowed. “This woman doesn’t know anything about me. She has never seen me before.”
“She never seen me before, neither.” The small man looked at Gretana, and for the first time there was a flicker of animation in his eyes, a door opening at the end of a long dark passageway in his mind. She saw the pistol in his hand swing towards her. Its movement seemed to grow slower with every degree of rotation, but the effect was subjective—a thin sad voice had warned her that her life was ending, that she was on the edge of oblivion, and her mind had reacted by seizing on the single moment that remained, attenuating it, reluctantly yielding it up by the microsecond.
In that cryogenic state of perception she saw with an awful clarity everything that happened as Lorrest reached higher with his upraised hand, snatched the fluorescent tube from its clips, and—turning it into a two-metre glass spear—drove it with all his strength into the stubby man’s face. It hit him on the bridge of the nose, shattered into little daggers which gouged through his eyes, then shattered again under the continuing impetus of the thrust to wreak further hideous damage. He fell backwards, howling, his pistol turning towards Lorrest. With the light tube in his hand reduced to a bloody spike, Lorrest went down after him. Gretana turned and ran to the bedroom as the howling abruptly ceased.
Death is real! The words shrilled silently inside her head. I’ve seen a butcher at work, and I’ve smelted the blood…
“Gretana!” Lorrest was standing in the doorway, and even in the reduced light from the other room it was obvious that his right hand was wet and red. “Playtime is over—you are now going to tell me where that node is.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t.”
“Think again.” He came towards her, reaching out with the hand which was wet and red, his face an inhuman mask. “Think again, Gretana.”